Study lists technology that is no longer needed

We all remember a piece of technology that we loved, and that turned out to be useless just a few months later. Again and again, we are exposed to something that we are told we cannot live without, only to then find that the next thing is even bigger and better. Now, My Voucher Codes has revealed new statistics on technology, and on what we no longer need.

Statistics on “e-waste” include:

9.4 million ton of e-waste is produced by Americans each year.

12.5% of e-waste globally is recycled.

20 to 50 million metric e-waste tons are discarded each year.

A number of pieces of technology have been revealed to have no more place in our society, despite being hailed as indispensable not long ago. Those include:

CRT TVs, both color, and, later, HD, have been fully replaced by HD TVs and flat screens. An attempt was made at 3D TVs, but they didn’t take on. It is expected that curved screen 4K TVs will soon be affordable. CRTs produced a tremendous amount of e-waste, including fossil fuels, chemicals, water, and lead.

The VHS and Betamax recording devices war was won by VHS due to its improved quality and lower price. However, DVDs came next, which Blu-ray, unsuccessfully, tried to replace. Today, we have HD DVDs, but more people choose to stream.

Vinyl and gramophone was the way to listen to music until the 1960s, when the 8-track tape was launched. Quickly, however, they were taken over by the Compact Cassette, which was in turn replaced by the CD. A mini disc made an attempt, but was unsuccessful. Today, most music is streamed or listened to on MP3.

Portable music devices, mainly the Walkman and the subsequent Discman, were huge. Then came the Minidiscplayer, which didn’t take on at all. Since the MP3, however, and the Microsoft Zune and Apple iPod, all of those were replaced. Today, people tend to use their smartphones for music playing.

Beepers, bleepers, and pagers were used so that people could contact each other in emergencies. With the advent of the mobile phone, however, they virtually disappeared. But cellphones create a tremendous amount of e-waste. One million phones, when recycled, can generate 33lbs of palladium, 75lbs of gold, 772lbs of silver, and 35,274lbs of copper.

The PDA – Personal Digital Assistants – were the must-have tool to help us organize our lives. However, with smartphones today being far stronger, faster, and effective than PDAs, they have completely disappeared. In fact, there are now more mobiles than what there are people on this planet.

The way we store data has also changed tremendously. We had cassette discs, floppy discs, Cs, flash drives, and now cloud storage. Circuit boards, meanwhile, produce tons of e-waste each and every year.

My Voucher Codes has also looked at technology that looked to have disappeared, but that has been resurrected since then. Some of those include:

Polaroid cameras.

Vinyl records.

Digital watches.

Cine cameras.

The company hopes that this increase in knowledge about obsolete and resurrected technologies will show people that they can recycle, or even retain, as fashions tend to come and go. There are often people who see pieces of technology as “vintage” or “collectors’ items”. As a result, rather than discarding items, they can be sold on. There are also numerous charities who collect recyclable items in order to raise funds to support their choices. With so much technology – and all its associated e-waste – ending up on landfill sites, it is important that people understand the alternative options that are out there.

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